


Ruled And Ruler

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Narnia, F/M, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5631679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So be it, daughter of Eve: your life for Narnia and your line in its service. Will you accept?" The question felt oddly formal; an oath-taking more weighty than the one she once swore as Queen of Narnia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruled And Ruler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).



> Um. So. I did a thing. Sort of.

Out of the others, only Phil asks if she's sure. Trip and Darcy are more willing to take her word on it, although the look Trip gives her suggests he wants to say something and is biting his tongue. But Trip's always known she knows her own mind - and, Maria thinks, he's a romantic at heart.

Well, given one of the reasons she's staying, maybe so is she.

"You can't come back, you know."

Phil is more practical - and older. He thinks he's responsible for them - never mind that the war is over, that they're not the children they were once, so long ago.

That was then, this is now, and Maria is going to be responsible for her own choices, thank you.

"I know."

He glances over to where the Prince and his tutor are standing, speaking with Aslan. Erskine looks like Professor Kirke the afternoon they returned from Narnia: full of so many questions he didn’t know what to ask first. It’s laced with a healthy amount of wariness – Aslan may be standing here, a mere animal among men, but the sheer weight of presence that he brings is something that only a fool would discount. And from what Maria can tell from Steve’s stories, Erskine’s no fool.

"This isn't like it was last time, Maria. Narnia's not what it was. Everything's changed--"

"Phil." She waits until he looks at her. "I want to do this. Not just...Not just for him. For them," she turns her head to look at the assembled people - Narnians, Old and New - who are standing, separate, in their groups, their gazes wary and watchful as they look at each other across the meadow with the shadows of old fear and old distrust in their eyes. "They were our people once - they're ours still. And look at them. Look at the Telmarines. Not all of them are going back, and those that are left--"

"The Narnians are still demons and monsters to the Telmarines." In his eyes, she sees the same haunting horror of the slaughter at the castle battle, the realisation that what lies ahead is a battle of an entirely different nature. "We'll stay," he says, then. "We can all stay--" But even as he takes a step towards Aslan, the sunlit mane turns to look at him and he stops dead in his tracks.

Whatever maturity they gained in the years ruling Narnia, whatever experience he's gained in the years since then, none of it counts when pitted against the command in those gold eyes.

Phil, Trip, and Darcy will go back, and Phil will never return, so Aslan decreed.

Maria alone was given the option to stay, and even then, Aslan was plain about her choices. “ _It won't be easy_ _._ ”

“ _But it will be Narnia._ ” And yes, growing up seemed exciting and interesting – and terrifying and daunting – but this was the land she’d dreamed of for years now, wondering if she’d ever get to see it again, wondering if she’d ever be allowed back.

“ _This is not the Age that your rule began. That time is gone and done, and while the memory of it remains strong in you, the here and now in which you must serve is a different time._ ” There was no judgement in Aslan’s eyes, just a steady certainty. “ _And once your choice is made, it cannot be unmade - once you put your hand to the work, you cannot take it back._ “

Maria had never shirked hard work before; but the loss of Earth, the loss of her friends…

She’d glanced over at them, then. At Darcy laughing with the Centaur Thor as Trip showed off the ‘dance moves’ he learned from the faun revels of so long ago, and Phil standing beside the Prince, both of them looking towards her and Aslan. " _I'll miss them,_ " she'd said, knowing it for truth, " _but Narnia needs me, too._ "

“ _Your life won't be your own, Maria, not as it was before. Your life will belong to him, to your subjects. You are served and servant_ _both_ ," Aslan said, gently, " _and sometimes the service will grate._ ”

She thought about the dingy apartment with the lingering smell of cabbage wafting up from the apartment below, and the thin, grey days of toil in an office where a dozen other girls also laboured under the sour gaze of the Gorgon. She thought of the avid eyes of the cop who thought his attention entitled him to her smile and implied that he could make it uncomfortable for her if she didn't show interest. “ _My life's not going to be my own anyway,_ " she said. " _A_ _t least here, I’d be making a difference._ ”

Aslan shook out his mane, and the eddy currents swirled around her with a fragrance that shook her heart and lifted her spirit.

“ _So be it, daughter of Eve. Your life to be for Narnia, your line to serve and be its service. Will you accept?_ ”

The question felt oddly formal; an oath-taking more weighty than the one she once swore as Queen of Narnia. “ _I will._ ”

Steve is looking at her now from where he stands beside Aslan, his expression serious and a little hesitant, before his mouth curves in a slow and tentative smile. Maria doesn’t blush. She’s been courted by schoolboys and princes; the admiration of men is nothing new.

New is the way her heart skips, the thickness of her tongue in her mouth, the way her fingers curl in on themselves. She'd heard the other girls in the office whisper about the guys that made their hearts go pitty-pat, but Maria had always thought she was beyond that. As it turns out, she was just waiting for a prince from a magical country.

Beside her, Phil sighs. “I suppose you’ll have _him_ , anyway.”

She elbows him lightly, amused. “Don’t be jealous.”

Phil gives her a stern look for the jealousy quip, even as he starts across the courtyard to collect the other two. And Steve comes over, reaching for her hand and curling his fingers into hers. “Are you rethinking?”

“No."

It’s the truth. She doesn’t regret her choice.

Not when Aslan calls in the doorway between the worlds, not when the first Telmarine goes back to Earth with the breath of Aslan upon him, and not when the long line of the Telmarines willing to take their chances in a world that will be no less strange and foreign than Old Narnia living in the midst of Telmar.

Not even when the others pause by her.

Darcy’s arms squeeze her tight. “We might come back. We hope we will—”

Trip wraps her in a hard embrace. “Don't start any fires you can't put out, okay?”

And Phil merely presses his lips to her forehead. “I believe in you.”

Then they’re walking away, through the door, gone.

She only realises she’s staring after them when Steve calls her name. “Maria?”

“Yes." Maria looks around at the assembled masses of Narnians - human and faun and centaur and dryad. She's lost a world, yes, but she's also gained one.

She looks at Steve, at the aura of authority that's settled on him, and in his gaze is the same instruction Aslan gave her - to serve and be served. It's a task she can set her shoulder to, wholehearted, with a man she can work with, respect, and love.

His hand is outstretched. She laces their fingers together. "Yes," she says. "Let's go home."


End file.
